1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication over a data network. Specifically, the present invention is directed to facilitating commercial transactions over a wide area data network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Historically, product-related information, such as a description of the nature of a product, price of the product, warranties covering a product, customer service associated with a product, and the like, was disseminated using various types of media. The media chosen was typically independent of the mode in which the actual transaction concerning the product was to occur. Rather, the media was chosen based upon the anticipated market for the product. For example, advertisements for mining tools would typically be found in a trade journal, as opposed to be displayed on television. However, the popularity of commercial transactions over wide area data networks, such as the Internet, has caused companies to disseminate product-related information through the same media through which the transactions concerning the products occur. As a result, companies are investing enormous amounts of time, money and effort to provide product-related information over the Internet.
Companies have been assisted in the endeavor to provide product-related information over wide area networks by the technology available on the Internet. The Internet typically includes a number of users employing client terminals communicating with a remote server computer to transfer information therebetween. To facilitate the transfer, the client terminals have a “web” browser that provides graphical user interface (GUI)-based communication with a “web page” obtained from a server. One popular collection of servers uses a standardized Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to provide information and is known as the “World Wide Web.” The information is typically presented as web pages written as text with standardized formatting and control symbols known as Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML). HTML provides basic document formatting and allows a server to specify “links” to other servers and files. Use of an HTML-compliant browser involves specification of a link via a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Upon such specification, the user's client terminal makes a TCP/IP request to the server identified in the link and receives an HTML file that is interpreted by the browser so that a electronic HTML document made up of one or more web pages may be displayed on the client's terminal.
One difficulty with commercial transactions over the Internet concerns shopping for items based on price (i.e., comparison-price shopping). Comparison-price shopping involves a user comparing prices for similar products to determine which the user desires. There are major factors endemic to the Internet that frustrate comparison-price shopping. First, the quantity of information frustrates the identification of a single product, much less multiple products having similar or analogous characteristics. A second difficulty is that the accuracy of the information on the Internet is often compromised by various conditions, such as the rapidity with which product-related information changes and the difficulty with updating large amounts of product-related information on the Internet. In addition, the accuracy of product-related information may be supplier-dependent. If a substitute supplier of a product is used, certain characteristics of product-related information may change (e.g., price).
With respect to finding information concerning specific products, the area is replete with attempts to augment the probability that the product-related information will be perceived by a user. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,937,390 to Hyodo discloses a method for determining the effectiveness of advertisements accessed over the Internet using a WWW browser. When accessing an advertisement, the user receives a toll-free telephone number of a store and calls the toll-free telephone number. A toll-free call control system connects the call to a store in which the desired product in available to determine whether the user would like to buy the advertised product. At the same time, information concerning the access is recorded as log information. This log information is posted to the service provider, and the service provider analyzes the hit rate from this log information and the WWW browser access log. From this result, the on-line service provider, or advertiser, can determine the effectiveness: of the given advertisement. However, a user cannot complete the transaction concerning the purchasing of the product entirely over the Internet, thereby requiring additional retail infrastructure.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,918,214 to Perkowski discloses a system and method for finding product and service related information the Internet. The system includes Internet Servers that contain information pertaining to Universal Product or Service Number (e.g., UPC number) preassigned to each product and service registered in the system, with Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that point to the location of one or more information resources on the Internet (e.g., World Wide Web (WWW) websites). A user is provided with an “Internet Product/Service Information (IPSI) Finder” feature and a “Universal Product/Service Number (UPSN) Search” feature. The system enters its “IPSI Finder Mode” when the “IPSI Finder” feature is activated enters the “UPSN Search Mode” when the “UPSN Search” feature is activated. When the system is in its IPSI Finder Mode, a predesignated information resource (e.g., advertisement, product information, etc.) pertaining to any commercial product or service registered with the system is automatically accessed from the Internet and displayed from the Internet browser by simply entering the registered product's UPN or the registered service's USN into the Internet browser. When the system is in its “UPSN Search Mode”, a predesignated information resource pertaining to any commercial product or service registered with the system is automatically accessed from the Internet and displayed from the Internet browser by simply entering the registered product's trademark(s) or (service mark) and/or associated company name into the Internet browser.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,681 to Levine, et al., discloses an invention for maintaining a record of items selected for purchase from a group of selectable items. The invention includes a browser at a client station having a request module to send a shopping page request to a server. A shopping page module in the server sends a shopping page file to the browser in response to the shopping page request. The shopping page file contains items selectable by a user using the browser. A shopping module at the browser generates an add request and sends the add request to the server. This add request contains selected items from the items that were selectable in the shopping page file. A receiver at the server receives the add request from the browser, and a cart list module at the server initializes a shopping cart list. An add module at the server adds the selected items to the shopping cart list. A shopping page module at the server converts the cart list to a cart field, generates a new shopping page file, embeds the cart field in the new shopping page file and sends the new shopping page file to the browser. In this way, the shopping cart field is in a shopping page file that may be managed by the browser at the client station.
While both Perkowski and Levine, et al., facilitate identification of products that a user is interested in purchasing, neither Perkowski nor Levine, et al., ensure the accuracy of the product-related information provided. What is needed, therefore, is a technique for easily identifying multiple products of similar characteristics that ensures the information corresponding to the products is accurate.